The Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT)
Introduction NASA's SuperBIT Telescope#History_and_development) is ready to fly! Super Pressure Balloon-borne Telescope, i.e., SuperBIT, is all set to take.
Updated
On this page
Key takeaways
- Introduction NASA’s SuperBIT Telescope#History_and_development) is ready to fly!
- It’s worth noting that the Hubble Space Telescope has already outlived its usefulness.
- But this raises a slew of new issues, such as whether it could perform as well as Hubble.
Introduction
NASA’s SuperBIT Telescope is ready to fly!
Super Pressure Balloon-borne Telescope, i.e., SuperBIT, is all set to take its first test flight. Scientists have stated that SuperBIT is a potential successor of NASA’s Hubble Telescope. Researchers from Durham University, UK; Princeton University, USA; Toronto University, Canada, teamed up with NASA and Canadian Space Agency to build this highly stabilized, high-resolution, and environmentally friendly astronomical telescope. SuperBIT is expected to make its operational debut in April 2022. Mohamed Shaaban, a doctoral student from the University of Toronto, described the telescope and its findings at the virtual RAS National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2021) on July 21.
One of the expected advantages of SuperBIT is that it will be immune to weather fluctuations because it would be located in the stratosphere, 40 kilometers above the Earth. Most of the weather events take place in the troposphere layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. The primary goal of this telescope will be to capture high-resolution pictures of objects in space.
How Would It Work? #
The telescope will be in the stratosphere, which is above 99.5 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. SuperBIT features a 0.5-meter diameter mirror and is carried by a helium balloon with a volume of 532,000 cubic meters, roughly the size of a football stadium. It can stay in space for several weeks or months. SuperBIT can be brought down for any sort of repair.
In conventional scientific balloons, the sun warms the balloon during the day, causing the gas to heat up and the vents to blow out. The gas shrivels up as the sun sets, and the balloon begins to fall. As a result of this, the balloon’s height changes dramatically throughout the day and at night. When the balloon is flying at 120,000 feet during the day, it will descend to 90,000 feet at night. Because zero pressure balloons have such a large altitude variation, polar locations such as Antarctica can be a hotspot for them, inflicting significant damage and perhaps resulting in their destruction.
This may not be the case in the over-pressured balloon of NASA’s SuperBIT telescope. Its pressure never decreases, regardless of day or night. This is because after filling it with air, it is firmly sealed. The pressure of the inner air is so high; the balloon will never be able to descend. This will eventually prevent the balloon from entering or approaching the hotspots, which would be harmful to them.
A comparable telescope, dubbed James Web, is also set to deploy alongside SuperBIT. Northrop Grumman Ball Aerospace & Technologies built this telescope, which has a 10-year mission lifespan on average.
SuperBIT, like Hubble, will work with light frequencies, whereas James Web will deal with infrared radiations. It’s worth noting that the Hubble Space Telescope has already outlived its usefulness. It was supposed to last only for ten years, yet it’s been taking pictures for three decades. However, its latest failure indicates that it is nearing the end of its life cycle.
The average cost of this telescope is around $5 million, whereas the cost of the Hubble Telescope was approximately $1.5 million.
Why Is It Environment-Friendly #
Mohamed Shaaban, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, said in an announcement that “New balloon technology makes visiting space cheap, easy and environmentally friendly”. According to the experts, this balloon technology may be the second-best thing ever developed in the world of astronomy.
This incredibly amazing telescope is environmentally friendly since, unlike other telescopes, it does not require rocket fuel. It will use solar panels built into its frame to charge its batteries. It will take off from Kanaka, New Zealand, and will go around the world many times, taking photos of the planet’s surface.
The SuperBIT team started developing it in the summer of 2012, and it took the first test flight in 2015. The launch, which took place from Timmins, Ontario, was co-sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency and CNES. Following this success, SuperBIT was renovated and relaunched in the summers of 2016 and 2018, with more advancements and refinement of overall instrument performance. SuperBIT’s most recent scientific qualification flight occurred in 2019, and it was the first flight to use space-qualified telescope optics for science imaging as well as improved cameras.
The SuperBIT’s flight with CNES-CSA from Timmins, Ontario, demonstrated its ability to conduct wide-field, geometric distortion imaging from the stratosphere in optical, near-infrared, and near-ultraviolet bands utilizing SuperBIT’s flight-tested stabilization system.
What Is Its Main Purpose? #
According to a post on the University of Toronto’s website, the main purpose of the SuperBIT Telescope is “to provide insight into the distribution of dark matter in galaxy clusters and throughout the large scale structure of the universe”.
The Hubble telescope, as previously stated, is old and no longer capable of performing properly. It must be replaced with an innovation that is more sophisticated than the old one and has fresh and exciting characteristics.
According to the reports, a new telescope, GigaBIT, which is three times the size of SuperBIT’s optical system, will be launched in September 2022. The Euclid Telescope is also expected to be launched next year by the European space agency.
Conclusion #
Astronomy and discoveries in the field are always intriguing. But all of this would not be possible without the tireless work of everyone engaged in making it a success. While NASA has succeeded in surprising us with its innovative innovations regularly, there is still a lot more to learn about space.
One of these instances is the SuperBIT telescope. But this raises a slew of new issues, such as whether it could perform as well as Hubble. Is the new balloon technology going to succeed or fail? Will this initiative be a success?
Related reading